I’ve been known to have my fun with con artists, especially the ones that attempt to take advantage of me. Let’s see, there was the guy that stole my identity in 2012. He was a con artist in Hanoi that used my debit card (figures, the one time I actually had a substantial amount of money in there) and bought websites. I strongly believe that everyone leaves breadcrumbs and he was no different. I used those breadcrumbs to hunt him down.
Then there was the Craig’s List ass hole that didn’t want to see my son’s bunk bed. He just wanted to send me a check?? I still don’t understand how the scam worked but I had my fun. At one point, I convinced him my Chihuahua was a cat and she was included in the purchase price of the bed.
So it brings me great delight to find these little nuggets in my inbox at work. I printed one of them off and even read them for my coworkers. Who is stupid enough to A. open these spam letters? B. Think it’s legit? C. Actually respond? Who? I mean, it goes beyond the saying, “if it’s too good to be true, it is”. It’s just common sense. For one, it ended in your spam folder for a reason. I don’t actually open them but screen shot them. My favorite is when they claim to be an American citizen but has the vocabulary that was on par with my middle school French class.
And so, I present to you my recent spam letters!*
*(Side note, every time you read UNITED BANK OF AFRICA, say it in a super-robotic voice. It makes it funnier!)
Spam Letter #2 The Barrister, Not the Barista
Don’t do what I do and think this person was referring to a barista. We aren’t at Starbucks. I had to Google it but apparently a Barrister is a Lawyer. Again, if this was a Floridian woman, I can promise you she would have used either Lawyer or Attorney. We don’t use Barrister in the states.
Yes, just give good ole’ Marina all your info. This is totally legit.
Spam Letter #3 The Philanthropist
Ok, I haven’t rubbed elbows with enough rich people to know who’s a philanthropist and who isn’t but my guess is they don’t walk around announcing, “Hi! I’m a philanthropist!” And second, philanthropists don’t run around, acting like the lottery fairy, giving away $2,000,000 to random people. What if that random person turns out to be Warren Buffet? Scam!
Did you love these? I did! My only hope is that no one falls for them! I will tell you I’m working on a way to securely respond to these spam emails, to jack around with them. My goal is to get their hopes up, get them overly flustered then they give up.
OH man! The second one? Saying her age and her citizenship AND her address? Dude seriously?
One of the students just got a letter like this, but in the mail. He just moved over to the house where I live and he was told he had mail at his old room so he went over and just took the letters out of the mail box. He got one not addressed to him but he’s 17 so he didn’t even look at the name he just opened it and it was a plain piece of paper with no headers or watermarks or ANYTHING typed out saying he was the recipient of 26.7 MILLION US dollars.
It was the most obvious one I’ve ever seen lol
While I do feel bad for people who get caught up in scams, like my uncle this one time got a phone call from this guy saying he was my cousin who had gone to Montreal and gotten into a bar fight and broken his nose which is why he didn’t sound like him and that they were being held at the police station and they needed bail, for the most part it’s just stupid what people fall for. All these emails you’ve put up here are so totally obvious!
And the dating scams? Like I get it, I want to find love, but the SECOND some guy asks me for money he’s out of my life. I don’t care how much of a connection we’ve made. He’s gone. There was an article in the news a few weeks ago how this one guy got taken for thousands and thousands of dollars by a woman he had never met or spoken to via video or anything. Like come on people!
I didn’t know there are dating scams but I guess, why wouldn’t there be? You know what I get maybe every other week? a message request from creepy dudes and it usually just says “hi”. I obviously deny all of those. I think I was once asked to be a friend by a terroist and obviously that was a hard no. I love that that moron said his voice was off b/c of a fight. Please!
Yeah! Said he broke his nose so his voice was weird. My uncle totally fell for it but he loves his kids more than anything! And there are TONS of dating scams! I’ve had at least two that I know of, but I’m guessing 3 actually
I see pots of clues here in the words- Kock industries??? ?And A -man- dats- lying (Amanda Lion?). ??
You are soooo smart! I didn’t even catch that! OMG! I set up a fake email for when I do attack scammers and my faux name is Karen Conacon. We’ll see if it works!
It is a good one!!
Well props to you for figuring it out!
Please, please tell the second one that you’re a wealthy philanthropist. Give her the contact info of the third. Pray they copy you on the feedback loop.
(if they do, blog it!)
OMG! Right! How funny would that be?